


Immortal

by FawnoftheWoods



Series: Not Alone Anymore [22]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: BAMF Tony Stark, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Presumed Dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:34:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23015581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FawnoftheWoods/pseuds/FawnoftheWoods
Summary: Tony never thought someone would kill Fury.  Never ever ever.  And yet...Tony's thoughts during Fury's "death" in CAWS
Relationships: Nick Fury & Tony Stark
Series: Not Alone Anymore [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/602305
Comments: 6
Kudos: 60





	Immortal

**Author's Note:**

> This one could be a stand alone, but its supposed to happen at the same time as [ Safe in their hands ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17664365).

Tony winced as he sat down on the side of the mat. Happy retrieved a water bottle as Tony focused on breathing through the pain of newly healing muscles rebuilding their strength. He just knew that Steve would put him through more paces when the man returned from DC so Tony hoped to start with Happy. Besides, the driver was, himself, still recovering and they could both move at a nice slow pace. 

Adrenaline and fear for Pepper had done wonders for Tony’s pain levels, but once that dried up, he felt each and every bump and bruise. So he combined spending time with Happy with recovering his own strength from the bouncing around steel he’d spent much of the fight doing.

“Sir, 86 is reporting aberrant behavior.” JARVIS interrupted. Tony sighed, standing up. He’d given Fury a personal, somewhat limited AI as a kind of thank you gift. Not that he told Fury what he was exactly. The AI installed himself on Fury’s phone and car, which Stark had provided to cover the delivery of the AI. At first, following the invasion and subsequent alteration in SHIELD’s MO, 86 reported a lot of aberrant behavior, leading to Tony creating a redundancy for JARVIS to evaluate whether the data was actually aberrant or just Fury being Fury. This decreased 86’s report considerably. Though, Tony wanted to take some time and find out if 86 had known about Agent’s survival.

He’d named the AI “86” because that was the name of the car Fury got. Named after Get Smart’s main character, Tony had decked out the car in all manner of useful, and useless gadgets. Largely to annoy Fury when not saving the man’s life.

“All right J, hit me!” Tony quipped as he walked gingerly out of the gym.

“Director Fury is contacting Agent Hill on the most secure channel and requesting her presence.” JARVIS stated. Before Tony could comment on how that was  _ not _ abnormal behavior, JARVIS spoke again, “Sir! Traffic accident involving 86!”

“What!?!” Tony yelped as he sprinted down the stairs, ignoring his sore muscles to get to his lab. “Patch me!”

“Communications are down. Data stream only, Sir”

“I’ll take it!” Immediately streams of code started flowing across the hologram. Fury’s medical scan showed a broken arm. Tony absently asked JARVIS to warn Steve while he reviewed the damage report. 86 was already rebooting each system but several were beyond the AI’s ability to help. 

New information scrolled across the screen. The structural integrity of the driver’s door was decreasing at an alarming rate. Tony almost thought someone like Steve or Hulk was punching the door. 

“Sir, 86 reports they are surrounded by Police imposters. Fury is negating attack countermeasures.”

Tony could see 86 trying frantically to reboot any and all subsystems even as the AI tracked and updated his human of the condition of the car. Fury called for the gatling gun when the structural integrity was at 1%. 

“ _ Christ, Nick _ !” Tony breathed as JARVIS finally found a traffic camera nearby. “Cutting it kind of close” Tony muttered.

86 got the propulsion system rebooted as Tony tried to find ways around some of the other downed systems. Specifically, the communications. Tony could see a data stream, but the receiving end seemed to be damaged in some fashion. 86 had no idea JARVIS was receiving any messages. 

But 86 had been built for Fury. And had spent the last year with Fury. If there was a chance J was listening, 86 would send until something told him the security there was compromised. Tony breathed a slight sigh of relief when 86 reported Fury taking the wheel. That meant he was mobile and relatively okay, broken arm notwithstanding. 

Tony snorted when Fury requested a list of working systems in the vehicle. It wasn’t a long list. Tony had worked with enough rudimentary AIs to notice how worried 86 was. System after system broke down as the AI frantically tried to work around them. It didn’t help that Fury was using the car like a plow truck. Tony watched as the sensor grid on the driver’s side went down. The power connectors were damaged, probably from gunfire, if the video was any hint.

86 was analyzing traffic patterns from Google as best he could. That was Tony’s way in. He still couldn’t talk directly to 86, but the AI had an open link for that information flow. It was enough to let Tony reroute all controls that normally used the front and rear bumper circuits to their back ups. If Fury needed to play bumper cars, those circuits were going to go fast. Tony could save 86 some time. 

86 acknowledged Tony’s access codes and then ignored his creator as he continued to coax more out of the badly battered car. Tony saw the front bumper go and turned his attention to the auto pilot functions. The flying option was completely out so this would be the next important bit. 86 diverted energy from that repair work to the brakes and steering column, completing it just as two cars sandwiched Fury’s. 86 noted a large truck approaching the intersection ahead and adjusted speed accordingly. Tony saw the message go to Fury, who interpreted it the way 86 expected him to, slamming the brakes and letting the police cars enter the open intersection.

With those taken care of, 86 began locating the nearest secure hideout. Tony helped eliminate some options just as all the data went absolutely haywire. Tony looked at the footage frantically to see that the car had actually flipped longwise. 

“Shit!”

Tony looked back to see 86 was ditching the car and activating the firesale protocol. All small helpful tools were evaluated and dropped into the cabin just before 86 finished decommissioning that installation. A final ping back along Tony’s connection sat in SI’s computer buffers to be merged with 86’s main program in Fury’s phone at a later date. 

“Sir, 86 notified me of Director Fury’s escape via sonic knife in the last message burst.” 86 still had no way of knowing that they were receiving him. But 86 was Fury’s AI. Tony could see the influence.

* * *

It took Tony nearly an hour to dig up Steve’s actual location in SHIELD’s database. JARVIS had tried him on his phone, but he hadn’t answered. Tony could track the watch but it was unlikely to help unless Steve was home and ignoring him. Since that was not like Steve, Tony resigned himself to finding the info another way. Shifty sneaks had a dozen red herrings that drove Tony to distraction. By the time he did, medics had been called to the apartment. Tony cursed and winced as he rose and made his way out of the room. Sharon had made the call, so she was there. That was good. His cousin could handle herself. But still, some extra would be ideal.

“Brucie, we gotta problem.”

Bruce hadn’t liked the idea of walking into a hospital, especially one full of agents, some of whom may be less than friendly, but Tony was way too noticeable. Tony, instead, located Hill, where she was making her way to Fury quietly and had them join up. 

While Bruce handled that disaster, Tony sent out a ping to Phil. Phil hadn’t said where he and CLint would be, but there were a few places for a dead drop message. Tony dropped a few, hoping to catch them sooner rather than later.

Then he tried the cameras near Steve’s apartment, trying to catch up where Steve lost the guy. Other than one flash, he found very little.

“Sir?” JARVIS interrupted. Tony paused. Usually JARVIS just spoke. WHen he waited for Tony’s attention, Tony knew it was bad.

Tony cleared his throat, “J?”

“Director Fury has been declared dead.”

Tony felt his ear ring. Nick Fury, dead? It couldn’t be. That old pirate was too damn hornry to die. he had to be. He couldn’t be dead.

Tony cleared his throat again. “J, confirm.”

JARVIS was quiet for a minute. Two Minutes. Five. And then, “Heart monitors show no activity for 7 minutes. Director Fury has been pronounced dead.”

Tony stumbled back towards his stool. He sat there staring at his hands a moment. He wanted to scream. 

Nick Fury couldn’t be dead. He was the pirate. He was Uncle Nicky. Not that those words had crossed Tony’s lips in over 30 years. It had taken him a few months to place the familiarity of the threatening silhouette. The man was eternal. He couldn’t be dead.

Tony wanted to scream.

He wanted to hunt down the killer. To strangle his throat til nothing but nothing passed through. To shake him so that his teeth rattled. To tell him that he couldn’t kill Nicholas Fury. You couldn’t kill the immortal spy. 

Tony wanted to scream.

Fury should have survived! He’d survived getting his eye ripped out during torture some time ago. He’d survived threatening and dancing with fearsome gods and angry rage-monsters. He knew everything. His secrets had secrets. He could never be gone.

Tony wanted to scream

Again They won. Whoever They were, they won. Again They took one of the good guys away. Why couldn’t the world give the good guys the break? Why did  _ They _ have to win? It was beyond unfair. Fury couldn’t have lost. If he could lose, what chance did the rest of the world have?

Tony wanted to scream

All those plans Tony knew about. Fry had been sharing more and more with Tony. Now, Tony could see, Fury had known. The sneaky bastard had known that if something happened, Tony could take over. Tony  _ would _ finish what the man started. Tony would handle the responsibility, because that was what Tony did. It was what he did when his parents died, leaving him Stark name. When Stane betrayed SI, leaving him all that mess. Again, someone left and again, Tony felt a stone land on his shoulders.

Tony wanted to scream

Tony hadn’t expected to need to take over when Fury was gone. Fury hadn’t seemed like the type. Fuiry was immortal. Tony hadn’t plans put in place for this contigency. He hadn’t even dreamed of the possibility. He’d never thought he’d see that old sneak for the last time.

Tony wanted to scream

Last time. When someone dies, the last time you see them always runs through your mind. Because unless you were a murdering psychopath, you don’t know its the last time. Fury knew something was up at SHIELD, that’s why he took Steve and Nat to DC. But Tony never thought they’d get the better of the old spy. Fury had visited Tony after the Mandarin. He’d said he was proud of Tony. Tony had blown him off. Because it wasn’t the last time they’d see each other. 

It couldn’t be.

Tony wanted to scream

* * *

Tony didn’t know how long he remained in that daze. But when he blinked, Rhodey and Bruce were back. Rhodey was shaking him, trying to get his attention while Bruce looked on in concern. 

“Tones, come on man, you’re starting to freak me out.” Rhodey shook his shoulder again. Tony looked at him. How could Rhodey be so calm. The order of the universe had been disrupted. Tony looked at Bruce.

“Brucie, “Tony croaked. Bruce reached out to hold his hand.

“I’m sorry, I should have known JARVIS would be watching. I’m so sorry Tony.”

“Wha-what?” Tony coughed. Rhodey pulled him into a side hug.

“Tony, Fury isn’t dead.”

Tony blinked at Bruce. He was saying what Tony felt, but Tony knew. He knew.

He knew what it was like to lose someone larger than life. He’d been down this road before. Begging for the truth to be wrong. Waiting for all he knew to be proved inaccurate. It hadn’t worked out well. 

“Bruce…” Tony croaked, but Bruce shook his head.

“Tetrodoxin B” Bruce blurted out. That gave Tony pause. The chemical was so specific and yet so not connected that Tony felt his brain start to ramp up again. 

“The de-stress pill?”

Bruce rolled his eyes. “Yes, my ‘destress pill’.” 

Tony blinked, “it slows the pulse.” He looked at Bruce in question. Bruce nodded.

“Faked death. He’s hiding out under DC.”

“ _ Under _ DC?” Rhodey asked incredulously.

Tony snickered as Bruce sighed and nodded. “I returned since that’s not a good place for a rage monster. He said he’d-”

They were cut off by a beep. It was the alert that J had for odd commands within the SHIELD database.

“Sir, Captain America just became a fugitive from SHIELD.”

**Author's Note:**

> Tony was 21 when his parents died. At 21, in that situation, he probably believed they would live forever. His father was larger than life and his mother untouchable. This situation is very similar. I wanted to write it.
> 
> Agent 86 is the code name for Maxwell Smart in Get Smart. 
> 
> What'd you guys think?


End file.
